


All or Nothing

by thefeelsonthebus



Series: cyberbuddies.com [2]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Fluff and Smut, M/M, Mario Kart, OR IS IT, Sequel, Unrequited Love, bordering between teen and mature, harry potter geeking out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-14
Updated: 2014-09-14
Packaged: 2018-02-17 09:33:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2304959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefeelsonthebus/pseuds/thefeelsonthebus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The transition between worst enemies to hesitant friends, and then hesitant friends to something more.</p>
<p>(Can't Judge a Book - part two)</p>
            </blockquote>





	All or Nothing

**Author's Note:**

> this is part two to Can't Judge a Book, the link to that is on my profile. it's teen bordering on mature, so I just put it as mature to be safe.

**_Six Months Later_ **

“Can I sit here?” Jason mumbled to Percy. Nico had a detention, and Hazel was at some lunchtime club. So here he was, six months after ditching the football team and joining Nico’s group, faced with sitting at their lunch table without Nico and Hazel for the first time. Percy and Annabeth made it no secret they still disliked Jason, Frank was, well, _frankly_ scared of him, and Leo, who had also joined the group, admittedly with a much warmer welcome than he got, tried to lighten the mood, but it rarely worked. Still, there was only one hour of it to suffer through.

 

Whenever Nico was there, he made Jason feel welcome. His smile warmed Jason up whenever the atmosphere at the table was frosty, and he had done one of the bravest things Jason had ever witnessed by trying to be a good friend, despite everything he’d done. Hazel was just as nice as Nico, and told Percy off whenever he said something scathing about him, but she didn’t have the same… _openness_ that Nico did. Jason still had feelings for Nico, of course. Nico being around him all day didn’t help that. In the past few months, Nico had been coming to his and Leo’s new apartment, (he’d got thrown out of his old house when he told his dad he was bisexual,) to get beaten spectacularly at Leo’s massive collection of war games on the XBOX. Nico seemed to think his feelings had disappeared. If anything, they had grown.

 

“Whatever, dude,” Percy said indifferently, moving up a seat so that Jason could sit down in between him and Leo. He slid into the seat, ducking his head so he didn’t have to look at Percy. Leo caught his eye and gave him a nervous smile, but there was definitely a more hostile atmosphere now that he was at the table.

 

“So,” Frank said, attempting to start up the conversation again. “Annabeth, have you nearly finished your revision now?”

“Oh, yeah,” she said, and Percy groaned. One thing Jason had learnt about being sat at this table was that once she got onto her schoolwork, she _never_ shut up. “I found some of my old revision folders from freshman year, and I’ve been looking over that, and Percy’s been helping me revise, haven’t you, Percy?”

“Um, yeah,” he said, looking a bit bewildered.

“I think I’ve got my examples on Renaissance architecture covered, and I know the formulas for extremely stable building design, but I still need to touch up on how to let natural light in. I know about the wall-length windows and the skylights, but I can never remember the others. And Percy, tonight you need to help me with –“

“I’m going to get dessert,” Jason mumbled, as an excuse to escape Annabeth’s ramblings about her architecture study. Percy glared at him, as if to say _let me come with you,_ but after Jason had taken a few steps back, the wolf stare switched to someone behind him.

 

“Hanging out with your nerd friends, I see, Jason?” A sarcastic voice said. Jason turned around very slowly, shooting a wolf glare to rival Percy’s at his old friend, and now new enemy.

“Luke,” Percy growled, his voice low and menacing.

Jason said nothing. White-hot anger was coursing through his veins. This guy had almost got Jason expelled. This guy had almost made Nico _kill_ himself. _No_ , he corrected. _He helped do that._

“What are you doing to do? Punch me? Yell at me for hurting your pathetic, stupid, gay friend?”

Jason’s jaw twitched. Before he knew what he was doing, he walked right up to Luke. He was just a few inches taller than him. “If you ever hurt, or even threaten Nico again,” He snarled, “I swear to God I will kill you, and you know very well what I am capable of.”

Luke swallowed. “You wouldn’t do that.”

“You know what I did to Nico. I would _never_ do that to someone as innocent as him again, but for you, I could just about manage to hurt you in the same way. And believe me, I hurt him a lot. I hate myself every day for it, but I hurt him a lot. And if anybody _ever,”_ he growled, _“_ Hurts him like that again, they will be _very_ sorry.”

 

Luke scowled. Six months ago he would have laughed at Jason, but after he beat him up, he was a _lot_ more wary about him. “Fuck off, Grace,” he spat, and stalked off.

 

Jason turned around, slowly unclenching his fists he wasn’t aware he had clenched. He was breathing heavily.

“Dude,” Percy said, his eyes wide. “That was…”

“Awesome?” Leo suggested.

“Yeah, that.” There’s an awkward pause, where both Percy and Jason looked at the floor, then Percy took a deep breath. “Jason, now I know how much you really care for him. That you’re nothing like you used to be. I was… I was wrong about you.”

“Jesus, Percy,” Jason mumbled, scratching the back of his neck. “That… that means a – thanks, Percy.”

“No problem,” Percy said in reply, staring at the ground.

There was another awkward silence until someone tapped Jason on the back. He turned around and saw Nico, that adorable half-grin of his plastered on his face. “Hey, Jason.”

 

“Hi!” Jason felt his stomach turn over the same way it always did when he saw Nico. He seemed to always notice something new about him, something that made him love him even more, every day. The slight upturn of his eyebrow. The length of his eyelashes. The quirk of his lips. Today, it was the way his hair had just the faintest curl to it in its shaggy mess.

Percy gave him a knowing look. “How’s the delinquent?” He said, smirking.

“Bored stiff,” Nico said, frowning as he massaged the back of his neck. “And stiff in general too. Sitting on an uncomfortable wooden chair for an hour doesn’t do anyone any favours.”

Percy cocked an eyebrow. “What part of you is stiff, Nico?”

Nico threw his apple at Percy. “Watch it.” It bounced off his forehead, and rebounded to Jason. He caught it, and tossed it backwards and forwards between his hands. For some dumb reason, he was blushing.

 

“Why did you get a detention, Nico?” Jason asked hastily to try and disguise his red face.

Nico laughed. “I kind of went to McDonalds instead of turning up to Spanish class.”

“What?” Jason said, laughing.

“I know, but I’m really shit at Spanish. Why doesn’t this dumb school do Italian –“

“No, not that, why didn’t you get me any?”

“Oh,” Nico laughed. “Well, we can go tonight after school on the way back to mine.”

“Your house?”

Nico rolled his eyes. “Well, yeah, since I’m the only one who has Mario Kart and that’s the only game I’m decent at, I’d rather go there than go to yours and Leo’s apartment every night and get beaten at Call of Duty and FIFA and all the crappy, mainstream games he has.”

“Hey!” Leo said indignantly.

“Anyway, we can go through the drive through. You have your car, right?”

“Um, right,” Jason mumbled, but his heart wasn’t in it. He was thinking. Has Nico forgotten? If he went back there that night, it would have been the first time he had been inside Nico’s home since… since…

 

He hated to think of that night. Where he had raced to Nico’s house, knowing that if he didn’t get there soon enough, he would kill himself. When Nico opened the door, Jason had broken down because it was _him, he_ was the reason Nico wanted to die. About five or so months ago, Nico and Jason had agreed never to talk about it again, but it still haunted Jason frequently. He woke up sobbing from nightmares of being too late to save Nico at least once a week. Nico had no idea how much what happened in November still affected him.

 

“I mean, we haven’t got weeks until summer vacation, and I haven’t seen you in weeks because you’ve been studying for finals, and I’ll probably like, forget to socialise in the summer so I won’t see you, and –“

“It’s fine,” Jason said, holding his hands up. “McDonalds, then you beat my ass at Mario Kart. It’s all cool.”

He smiled at Jason. _God,_ he loved that smile. And thank God Nico was using it more now that Luke had stopped bullying him. Now that _Jason_ had stopped bullying him. “That’s great. Well, I’ll –“ The bell rang. He span around. “Shit, I don’t want another detention. There’s only so much sitting still I can bear. Percy, see you in Physics. Jason, I’ll meet you at the gates later.” Jason opened his mouth to say something, but Nico was already gone, with a hasty “Later!”

 

Later that day, Jason arrived at the gates five minutes early, having being let out early out of Chemistry, to find Nico already there. “Took your time,” he said cheerfully.

Jason shoved him as he dug his car keys out of his pocket. “Shut it.”

He swung his car door open. He was just glad that when he moved out, or was thrown out, he didn’t get his car he got for his seventeenth birthday took off him. He couldn’t deal with getting lifts in Leo’s frankly unreliable pickup truck everywhere. “Where to, Mr di Angelo?”

Nico swung his feet up onto the dashboard. “The very exclusive, high-class, luxury restaurant known as McDonalds, please, Mr Grace.”

“Get your feet off there, I cleaned that yesterday!”

“Yes, _mom._ ” Nico obediently swung his feet down as Jason started the car. “What you getting?” he asked.

“Probably just chicken nuggets,” Jason answered, nearly getting the car smashed as he swung out into the road. _Goddammit_ Nico for distracting him with his face.

“Are you kidding? You don’t go all the way to McDonalds just to get chicken nuggets?”

“Oh, yeah?” he said, grinning. “And what do you get then?”

Nico looked at the ground, blushed and said something that sounded like _crappy wheel._

“What?”

“A happy meal,” Nico mumbled.

Jason laughed so hard, he almost missed the turning for the McDonalds drive through. “Seriously?”

“Nothing to laugh about!” Nico said indignantly. “Look, you’re next.”

 

“May I take your order?” the bored girl with dark hair asked from the window. She seemed to be chewing gum.

“Um, yeah,” Jason said, shooting a glance at Nico. “Can I get 6 chicken nuggets with fries and sweet chilli sauce? Oh, and two cokes?”

“Sure,” the girl said, writing it down but not looking at the notepad. “Anything else?”

Jason stifled a laugh. “And… and a happy meal.”

The girl rolled her eyes. “With you in a moment, sir.”

 

He drove forward to the booth where they collected their food as Nico punched him in the arm. “Not funny!”

 

“That’s nine dollars and fifty cents. Here’s yours,” the guy with the grey beard and the flowery t-shirt said at the next window as he handed over a plastic bag to Jason. “And here’s your boyfriend’s.” Jason snatched the Happy Meal box, blushing furiously, and threw over a ten dollar note.

“Fuck off.”

He drove away from the drive through, aware Nico was sat beside him, staring at the floor, clasping the Happy Meal to his chest, slowly turning as red as he was.

 

As Jason was driving back to Nico’s, he realised he couldn’t do this anymore. He couldn’t pretend everything was fine and that he only liked Nico as a friend. Being this close but not close enough was killing him, and he hadn’t even realised. He didn’t want to just play Mario Kart and eat McDonalds with Nico. He wanted to hold him. He wanted to kiss him, _God,_ he wanted to kiss him so badly. He wanted to hold him through the night. He wanted to do – well, he didn’t need to share _everything._ But he couldn’t deal with this in-between-ness anymore. It was all or nothing.

 

Nico broke the silence just as they were pulling up outside his house. “For _fuck’s_ sake –“ he said, looking inside the box.

“What?” Jason said, trying to distract himself from the shudder that ran up his spine when he saw the front of Nico’s house. When he was last here, he was a bully.

Nico got out of the car and walked over to Jason’s side, clasping the Happy Meal box with one hand. “The toy. It’s Mythomagic. Bianca –“ his voice cracked. “She used to buy it me.”

Jason looked at Nico’s free hand, which was resting on his thigh. He wanted to reach over and squeeze it to comfort him, but his hand seemed to be made of lead. He took a deep breath. If Nico could survive bullies and the death of his sister, Jason could hold some dumb guy’s hand.

He reached over and laced his fingers with Nico’s.

Nico looked over at him, his mouth half open. Jason smiled sadly, a strange ache in his chest. “Come on,” he said softly. “Let’s go inside.”

 

They walked up the drive hand in hand.

 

Once they were inside, Jason felt his hands start to shake. The last time he was inside, he was probably crying. He looked at the sofa that he broke down on, and felt a shiver run up his spine. Nico had wanted to kill himself in this room.

Suddenly, he was brought back to earth with a bump when Nico squeezed his hand. Jason blinked, and saw Nico was looking searchingly up at him. “You okay?” he asked.

“Fine,” he said, his voice wavering, because inside, his brain was screaming _no._

 

Nico slid the Mario Kart disk into the TV and sat down on the sofa, breaking open his Happy Meal while it loaded up. “Who do you play as?” He asked.

Jason dipped a chicken nugget in sweet chilli sauce as he sat down next to Nico, a little closer than he normally would. “Luigi.”

“I play as Yoshi.”

“Well, you are small and prehistoric.”

“Hey! You’re older than me!” Nico protested as he threw a fry at Jason. He caught it in his mouth and stuck his tongue out at Nico.

“Let’s play.”

 

Of course, Nico chose the hardest course, insisting he was the best at it. Fortunately, Jason had played Mario Kart as a kid with Thalia, and after Nico had fell off Rainbow Road for the seventh time, he threw his controller on the floor in annoyance.

“I give up! I thought I was going to win but I can’t!” Nico looked at Jason, attempting to be angry but the quirk at the corner of his mouth giving his humour away, and God, he was _so close_ but so far from where Jason wanted him to be. Then the quirk vanished, and his eyebrows furrowed. “Jason, are you okay? You look like you’re going to be sick.”

Jason sighed. He _felt_ sick. “I need to talk to you.”

 

He placed his food and controller on the floor, and Nico did the same hesitantly, looking nervously up at Jason. “Is something wrong?”

Jason gave a long sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose, his stomach churning. Finally, he blurted it out. “Nico, I – Fuck, Nico, I’m still in love with you.”

Nico’s eyebrows rose slightly. He didn’t look annoyed or upset. He just looked astonished.

“And we’ve been pretty good friends, but I can’t just live like this anymore in this, this in-between thing from strangers to – well, and I can’t _deal_ with it anymore, and it’s _killing_ me.” He blinked, hard.

Nico was still looking at him like a fish.

“And it needs to be one or the other. All or nothing. And I won’t be able to decide because it’s what you want that matters. So, and it’s _really_ shitty of me to leave this up to you, but you decide. All or nothing. And if it’s nothing, I understand.”

 

Jason took a deep breath and looked at Nico desperately, for any reaction. Finally, after what was actually three seconds, but felt more like three hours, Nico put both of his hands gently on Jason’s cheeks. “I’ll take all, please,” he whispered, his voice breaking at the end. Jason gave a cross between a laugh and a sob, and Nico did the same, biting his lip and grinning shyly at Jason. He was already so close, their noses practically touching, and Jason only had to lean forward a few inches before their lips met and they were kissing.

 

Jason had looked at Nico’s mouth often enough, watched it talk and laugh and frown, watched his lips curve upwards into an amazing smile, but there was no way he could have anticipated the sweetness of them, or the way they were so soft and just a little chapped on one corner where Nico bit it when he was nervous. There was no way he could have known how good it would feel when Nico put one hand on the arm of the sofa behind him, so he was steady, and the other on the back of Jason’s neck, pulling him closer, tugging at his hair just a little, so Jason couldn’t help the small noise of pleasure he made.

Nico’s breaths were shaky. “Fucking _finally,_ ” he said between gasps. Jason pushed him backwards, so he was lay flat on the sofa, with Jason practically lying on top of him.

Nico stared up at Jason with wide, dark eyes. Jason swallowed. “Is this still okay?” he asked, his voice coming out hoarser than he’d meant it to.

“Don’t stop now,” Nico breathed. “Don’t stop now, you fucking menace.”

Jason leant forward, partly due to his own desires, partly because Nico was tugging his shirt so he was impossibly close to him. He kissed him again, biting Nico’s bottom lip, worrying it between his teeth. He wanted to ease him in gently, because he will _not_ fuck this up. Not after he’d waited for so long. Not with Nico.

 

He bit Nico’s bottom lip _hard,_ so that he gasped, his mouth falling open. Jason curled their tongues together, and Nico moaned a little, and he said “ _God,_ Jason,” and the way he said it, with such reverence, was almost like a prayer. He would say he couldn’t breathe, but that wasn’t true, because he could _feel_ his breathing pick up, so he was almost panting, his heart quickening as new warmth settled in his stomach. And he’s glad he’s never done anything like this before, because if he had, _nothing_ could beat how he felt now.

“Nico,” Jason breathed. Nico stared up at him for a second, his chest rising and falling rapidly. “Don’t stop,” he whispered, and Jason obeyed. There was something desperate in the way Jason rocked against him, almost without realizing, as he kissed him, and Nico responded eagerly, arching up and pushing back, making the tiniest of moans. Jason suddenly had a new life goal of making that sound come out of Nico as often as humanly possible.

“Jason,” Nico said again, and then his hands were under Jason’s shirt, skimming across his back.

“Shit, Nico,” Jason said breathlessly. Nico’s hands curved around Jason's ribs, and Jason felt a hot coil twist in his abdomen and he couldn't help the breathless grin that spread across his face.

Nico looked up at him, a matching grin on his. “Hi there.”

“Hey,” Jason laughed quietly, then kissed Nico again, softer this time, and slower, because what was the rush? They had all the time in the world.

 

Well, at that point, they thought they had, because they didn’t hear the car pull up on the drive.

 

“Jason must be here; maybe we can join in on their game of – oh!” Frank’s voice rose as he walked into the room and took on the scene before him. Jason shot up, breaking off the kiss abruptly, and when he saw Frank, who had backed up away from the sofa, and Hazel, who had just walked into the door, he twisted away from Nico and promptly fell off the sofa, landing on top of a box of fries.

Nico shot up too, endearingly red. “Just playing Mario Kart!” He yelped. Jason brushed a fry off his jeans, trying to pull his shirt down over his stomach.

Hazel fanned her face. “ _Nico di Angelo,_ I would prefer it if you did not have sex with our mutual friends on our sofa!”

“He wasn’t – we weren’t –“ Nico stumbled over his words, and Jason got up, looking at Nico bashfully.

Frank was shaking his head ashamedly. “What did our teachers always say, _wait until marriage –“_

“Shut up!” Nico was as red as a strawberry. “We – it just happened!”

“Offended, Nico!” Jason said, beginning to see the funny side. This was clearly the most embarrassed Nico had ever been.

“No, I didn’t mean that, Jason –“ Nico touched Jason’s hand, and Frank raised his eyebrows. Nico glared at him.

“We’ll leave you two alone,” Frank said. Nico had his head in his hands, still bright red. Frank picked up a DVD from the side, which Jason realized later was _The Princess and the Frog,_ and walked upstairs with Hazel.

 

Once they were alone, Jason looked at Nico for a second. They could only hold a straight face for barely a second before they both burst out laughing.

“Do you want to watch a movie?” Nico asked, after they had stopped laughing.

“Yeah, which one?”

“How about Harry Potter?”

Jason nodded. “I like your thinking.”

“They’re all stacked in the hallway upstairs. Go and choose one while I try and salvage the food.”

Jason nodded and went upstairs, laughing as he heard Nico complain “Goddammit Jason, you fell on my fries!”

 

Jason crept past Hazel’s open door and snatched the first DVD that was on the table in the hall, which happened to be _Deathly Hallows Part 2._ Then he sneaked back down the stairs, smiling at the sound of Frank and Hazel enthusiastically singing along to _Almost There,_ and walked back over to Nico, putting the DVD in the TV.

“You had to pick the saddest one, didn’t you?” Nico complained, but he was smiling.

 

They watched the movie, but Jason kept getting interrupted by Nico giving him chaste kisses on the lips. Eventually Jason just gave up and pulled Nico towards him again, not stopping kissing him from when McGonagall fought Snape to when Hermione and Ron went to the Chamber of Secrets. Nico insisted he liked that bit, but Jason took the hint and pulled his arm around Nico’s waist as they watched the rest of the movie. At at least four points, Jason was sure he could hear Nico sniffling.

 

By the time the credits rolled, night had fallen. Jason rubbed his eyes, yawning, when he saw the time. “Jesus Christ, eleven o’clock?!” He exclaimed.

Nico frowned. “You’re tired. You can’t drive home like this.”

“I’ll get Frank to give me a lift back then.”

But when they crept upstairs, Hazel was sleeping soundly alone.

Jason sighed, yawning again. “He must have left while we were watching the movie.”

Nico looked cautiously up at him. “You could – you could always stay here.”

“Really? Is that alright?” Nico nodded, and Jason went to go downstairs.

“Wait. What are you doing?” “Sleeping on the couch.”

“You can sleep in my room.” Jason stared at him, and he flushed bright red. “No, not like –“

“I know,” Jason said, smiling. “It’s just funny to see you flustered.”

 

They curled up in Nico’s bed, both of them barely fitting in. As Nico placed his head on Jason’s chest, he felt his heart rate pick up again.

“Why haven’t we done this before?” Nico asked quietly.

Jason laughed. “As I recall, you were the one who said we’d be better off friends.”

“That’s it. Blame it all on me,” Nico said humorously. There was silence for another moment, then Jason spoke.

“is this it then? Are we finally – well, together?”

Nico curled a hand around Jason’s waist, so it rested on his hip. “If that’s what you want.”

Jason pressed a kiss to Nico’s forehead. “Sure as hell that’s what I want.”

 

~

 

There was no denying there was talk when Jason Grace and Nico di Angelo arrived in the same car the next morning, but they didn’t really care. They just went around their own normal business, eating lunch with their friends, going to classes, meeting up in between lessons. Everything looked the same. But to an eagle-eyed person, there was a clear difference in the way Jason turned back to smile at Nico again after he’d started walking away. In the way Nico stood just a little closer to Jason when they talked. Subtle differences, but still, differences. Of course, if they’d seen the way they kissed as soon as they were out of public sight, safe in Jason’s bedroom in his apartment, they would have definitely known something was different.

 

May blossomed into June, and Jason kept his promise that scorching hot summer. He and Nico saw each other most every day. Sometimes they ate ice pops to their hearts’ content. Sometimes they had water fights in Nico’s back garden, with Hazel and Frank joining in. Sometimes they just played Mario Kart. More than twice, more than both of them would care to admit, they went into Nico’s room to do things Hazel pretended she didn’t know about, even though when she was cleaning out Nico’s drawers she found the half-empty condom packet. One glorious sunny day they went with Annabeth, Hazel, Frank and Percy, to Harvard University, to say their goodbyes to Annabeth, who had got a place. And on the last day of summer, the day before Jason started his last year of high school and they faced a year that would end in a painful goodbye, they sat down and looked through the chat that started it all.

 

_Can I ask you for some help?_

They held onto each other as they read through it, Nico holding Jason as he shivered when he looked at the painful reminder of how he used to be, Jason holding Nico when they read his suicide note. After they had done, they deleted it. They had to stop dwelling on the past and start looking forward to the future. Well, not too far into the future. In less than a year, Jason would be off to college. But they had nine months until then. And they were damn well going to enjoy them.


End file.
